acknowledging the missionary with a knowing smile and a wave. Absent-mindedly, he turned to leave and stepped out onto the road, forcing a Toyota pickup to swerve to avoid col-liding with him. Jack whispered silent thanks, deciding then to ride up to his favorite site and spend some time alone, to reflect on his loss.
He peddled his way along the high road where Dutch-built bungalows dotted the mountain landscape overlooking the lake, the area surrounded by primary rainforest and lush plantations of coffee and cloves. He passed a farmer leading an anoa along the road, Jack steering a wide path around the dwarf buffalo as experience had taught that these animals were unusually aggressive and unpredictable. The indigenous fauna had fascinated the American from the outset. During an outing when Netty Tangali had taken him on a countryside excursion he had been fascinated with the unusual babiroesa deerpig, an animal with enormous, upturned corner teeth that pierced the skin as these curled towards the skull. The beast did not have split feet – Jack’s interest growing when Netty explained that this odd mammal was considered halal by the local Muslims and could therefore be eaten.
Before entering the Church missionary program and accepting the assignment to Sulawesi Jack’s appreciation of the delicate socio-religious intricacies of the region were all but nonexistent – the briefings he had attended back in the U.S., initial y leaving him frustratingly short in facing the realities of what transpired in the field. He accepted that had it not been for Netty’s dedicated and persevering nature, his knowledge of the local culture and language would have remained severely lacking.
Approaching his destination Jack began to tire and walked the bicycle the remaining distance up the slope, where a gigantic stone pillar had been placed to symbolize the Pamona ethnics’ secession from East Toraja. Jack often visited the site where local folklore had it that at the top of this hill, heaven and earth were once connected by a rope, the myth, in some way providing him with a philosophical link of his own. He settled down on a grassy patch, head nestled upon knees, taking measure of his life, his decision to work in the field as a missionary and where it might lead.
* * * *
Jack McBride’s small but effective operation in the isolated and predominantly Christian township of Tentena was a ninety-minute drive from the district capital of Poso. The people were friendly and receptive to his presence and, apart from Nathan Glaskin, a cantankerous septuagenarian from Idaho who maintained authority over Jack’s operation, life passed relatively smoothly in his domain. The fire-and brimstone minister had been ensconced at the regional headquarters for more than two decades, Jack’s presence an obvious irritation to the ageing cleric.
Since arriving in the eastern Indonesian province, Jack had learned that medical missions were often considered to be an impediment to the indigenous church programs unless a clear distinction was made between a medical missionary practice and a general practice of medicine overseas. After a number of confrontations Jack accepted that the spiritual aspect of the ministry was to be left entirely to his fellow-American, Nathaniel Glaskin, ‘As a missionary,’ Jack was often reminded, ‘your purpose here is to raise the health standards of the local people, and meet their medical and surgical needs. I, however, am charged with caring for their spiritual needs, not you. And, as such, you should therefore refrain from referring to yourself as a medical missionary.’
Jack had worked tirelessly with Netty to establish the now successful clinic which provided medical services not only to Christian, but also to Tentena’s Muslim families. He understood that religious harmony prevailed throughout the district due to the wisdom of local authorities whose decision to implement power-sharing had removed the primary cause of most disputes. Strategic positions in district government were arranged informally so that a Christian appointee would be assisted by a Muslim deputy, and vice versa, the compromise bringing an appearance of social unanimity to the province. However, Jack’s superior, Nathan Glaskin scoffed at the system, citing the growing influx of Muslims into the region, predicting that there would be a significant shift in the social structure with the many thousands of transmigrants arriving from Java and other over-populated Muslim islands. When Jack raised this most delicate of subjects with Netty, she had confirmed that the Christian hold on such key posts had diminished considerably over the past five years and that there was, indeed, a resurgence of animosity between the two groups.
As he lay contemplating the possibility of future conflict, Jack considered the genesis of the archipelago-wide conundrum.
When Indonesia achieved independence from the Dutch fifty years before, the new leadership successfully resisted calls for Indonesia to become an Islamic state, offering the people pluralism and affirming a diversity of religions which embraced Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. Jack had read that the Republic’s founding fathers’ wishes were later frustrated by President Suharto who, in an attempt to shore up his presidency courted Islamic radicals, understanding that this alliance would, undoubtedly, lead to an escalation in attacks on Christian communities. These were the seeds of discontent, planted for political gain, destined to rip the nation apart.
Jack lit a kretek, the familiar fragrance of the clove cigarette soothing the moment he inhaled, an image of his mother looking down critically, intruding on his thoughts. He visualized her standing there waving a disapproving finger. He looked skywards and smiled. It was time to bid her farewell.
Jack McBride offered a silent prayer to his mother, the people of Tentena and Sulawesi’s fourteen million inhabitants. He cast his eyes across the horizon towards the east where the archipelagic province of Maluku accommodated a further two million Indonesian citizens, conscious that the majority were also Christian, their number spread across a thousand small islands covering a vast expanse of ocean. And, in that moment, he experienced the tug of history and vowed to visit the famous Spice Islands which had drawn Indian, Chinese, Arab and European traders to that destination.
East Indonesia –
The Moluccan Islands (Ambon)
Nuci recognized the modernized melody as one of the traditional Moluccan songs; the foot-tapping reggae beat lifting her spirits as she went about the household chores. She paused, a brief moment from childhood triggering images of her mother singing in church, the memory momentarily distracting her from the chore at hand.
Born into a Christian Ambonese family, Nuci had been raised in an environment of want and despair following the collapse of the Maluku independence movement in 1950, tales of those events as related by her father, caught in the cobwebs of her mind. Nuci recalled that both her parents had fought for the Dutch-inspired autonomous state of “East Indonesia”, the formation of the RMS, the short-lived Republic of South Moluccas, and participated in the Christian-led revolt against the Indonesian government.
As a child, Nuci had soon become aware that this close identification with the Dutch had stigmatized her people – branded as traitors by Jakarta – punished, when the Sukarno-inspired revolutionaries finally prevailed and the Moluccan Islands were absorbed into the Republic. She knew that many Ambonese Christians had either fled or were forcefully deported to the Netherlands, whilst those who remained behind suffered the ignominy of being treated as second-class citizens by their new colonial masters, the Javanese. During her formative years she became more aware that the Indonesian military had a very long collective memory, treating most harshly those ethnic minorities who had ‘betrayed’ the country during the War of Independence against the Dutch.
Nuci’s family had enjoyed the comforts accorded to civil service employees. She had attended a Sekolah Menengah Atas, her studies at the middle high school interrupted when her father was retrenched along with many others – replaced with Muslim workers transported from Java and Madura under the transmigration scheme. Ambon’s lucrative spice trade had diminished dramatically over the past century and, unable to find employment in what was rapidly
